Lecture Sat. January 3. 2015 - Inspiration for the new year!

Recognize the banner on top of my blog?
Let's talk about it.
Together with Dennis van Hoek I'll hold a lecture about iceclimbing and other vertical adventures.
Location: climbing gym Monte Cervino, Bergschenhoek (NL)
Time: 19:00

On the day we'll hold a special drytool clinic.

Subscribe and join through our FB event pages.

Lecture:

https://www.facebook.com/events/315530775311343/

Clinic:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1540305216214214/

Drytool roller-coaster

Trailrunning, climbing, bouldering, yoga, running, route-setting, writing, more writing and more training. And planning. Planning big things. 

It feels like I'm planning the whole year of 2014 already and that feels really strange. I've never planned that far ahead.

Last week we ended the Expeditie Geluk. 

Finally. 

I was dragging myself to the finish line. 

Physically I was all fine and fit enough but mentally I could hardly manage the thing. 

No climbing, "for the sake of the team" someone in the team who turned out to be a completely different person almost broke me. 

Alltogether the whole project was a great experience and I'm still grateful that I was invited to be part of it all. 

Walking the whole (almost whole, as I went to the Alps for a couple weeks in between) border of the Netherlands is something more people should do. 

People that say that the Netherlands is "full" for example.

People that say the Netherlands is all the same everywhere. 

People that say the Netherlands doesn't really have a culture. 

On the way I found people with passion and compassion. 

The big red line though all the meetings we had every day was the connection within the community and the importance of this connection. In the Netherlands politicians introduced a new law, the participation-law. Making it obligatory to participate in the society. 

It's something that was really a need for, but mainly in the bigger cities. Participation is something so logical in the smaller communities, they don't even understand the (in Dutch) difficult word of par-ti-ci-pa-tion.

Culture and language is something I find really interesting. The way how you can see culture through language and language through culture is something very special. 

And also the landscape, infrastructure and history in the Netherlands is so interesting. 

By slowly moving through the landscape by walking I really could see the changes, what closed borders have for effect on culture and how it all changes. 

I have the feeling that I understand the Netherlands much better now.

But I was also happy it was all over and done. 

Now I had time again to do what I really love to do: climb, sport, train. The first thing I did on the evening that we were back again was drive to the climbing gym as fast as I could and climb till closure. 

Right now I'm trying to do a million things at once. 

Preparing two different big lectures, setting routes for the drytool event, searching for 2014 climbing objectives, trying to find and prepare for a job in Germany, making money to pay for my car, and in between só many other things... Waking up at 6:30 and going to sleep at 12:30...

And in between all that I'm trying to get in shape again for the upcoming season. Ice, rock, mixed, snow... Ahhhh, real stuff....soon. 

Speedclimbing, Climbuz and the Outdoor lecture

The last week before real climbing starts again.

It's finally Sunny here in the Netherlands, making it feel like Summer.

Summer fun 

All the stress of getting everything done in time also belongs to the Summer feeling I guess.
Tax forms, invoices, MOT for my car(s), some work, a lecture for Outdoor, preparations for the Dutch Drytool Event, Expeditie Geluk, preparations with the Van Hoek family for the family climbing adventure and much more...
Oh yes, and Climbuz has to be ready for the Summer trip too.

Oh, yes, and I lost a bit of wisdom

In between I try to climb too.
Although, never enough... I wish I could climb twice a day, every day but three times a week seems the average for now. Making me feel slow and fat.

Preparations for the Van Hoek adventure

Climbing in the rain with the Van Hoek family

Apparently I'm not too fat yet, as I ended in 4th place on two national leadclimbing competitions. With that I'm good enough to be in the finals of the national lead competition.
If I had more time to climb...
Apparently I'm not too slow either as I reached the podium of the open national ("student") speedclimbing competition too. Second place.
And so, so close to gain the first place! I made a classic Marianne-mistake: I should have jumped to the top, instead I reached...static doesn't work when you climb on full speed :(
Roelien was smart enough to jump and won.

Interbest/NSAC/NKBV Speedclimbing: Battle the Wall

With Roelien on the first place

Dennis also took second place, but we're still not sure if he was second...or first?

About the fat issue, I went to a nutritionist last week, to talk about food, energy, efficiency and more.
There's so much nonsense to be found about nutrition, weight and health related to sports, that I found it a better idea to ask a pro about it all. As marathon runner and a non-believer in extra proteins he had some interesting research and facts to show me. He gave me some fairly simple but interesting tools to use. Let's see how that will work in the rest of this year.

My carrot cake recipe. The main reason of being too heavy I think

My parents are not worried about any fat issue for the next two months. They'll be cycling again. This time to Santiago following the French coast line.
My mum left all behind by retiring, my had is happy to join the journey (but still has a couple years of working left...)

My parents on their way to Breda. 

I also went to Schoorl.
Collecting rubbish for half a day and MTB for the rest of the day.
As ambassador of Respect the Mountains it was good to see how much effect a little bit of work has. Together with more then 60 volunteers and some ambassadors over 700kg of rubbish had been collected within just 2 hours time!
It's impressive to see how much of it is plastic. Even plastic toys were part of what we found.

Plastic soup?

Plastic soldiers and a armless Viking

Dennis has been busy too. First with school. He has a lot to do before he can go to his final traineeship in Germany after this Summer.
At the same time he tries to fix Climbuz.
A new engine, a fully working gearbox again and now everything is electric it's a lot harder to understand what might be wrong. (...or do I just have to reset the accelerator with the computer...?)
Since today the van works again! He took Climbuz out for a ride and hopefully we'll get it fixed before we reach Friedrichshafen on Wednesday.

New paint layer by night

The first start...and the engine works!

Test drive

My two cars have MOT again and I decided I should sell my lovely Golf 1.

Meanwhile I've been working on my lecture. At OutDoor in Friedrichshafen I'll hold a lecture about education. A motivational lecture about educational systems with a motivational link to the Outdoor Industry.
You're all welcome to join on Thursday 13:00h in room London.

One of the drawings in my lecture.

Now time to cycle, climb and work again.
Just two more days! Yay!